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Back in the days when I was a developer, Borland allowed me to see all the tips and tricks inside their Windows libraries. It gave me insight and examples on how to "do" things that I could see them doing, but was unable to replicate. Well this is now happening with the .Net framework.

Microsoft opening up .Net Framework libraries

By releasing the libraries under its Reference License and Shared Source Initiative, Microsoft has made the .Net source code viewable but unmodifiable

By Paul KrillOpening up to developers, Microsoft is releasing its .Net Framework libraries under the Microsoft Reference License, which allows viewing of source code but not modification or redistribution, the company said on Wednesday.

The release gives developers the opportunity to better understand the inner workings of the framework's source code, Microsoft said. Microsoft's efforts fall under the company's Shared Source initiative, which allows for sharing of source code; Shared Source has been viewed as Microsoft's answer to open source, in which users can view selected source code.

"One of the things my team has been working to enable has been the ability for .Net developers to download and browse the source code of the .Net Framework libraries and to easily enable debugging support in them," said Microsoft's Scott Guthrie, general manager in the Microsoft Developer Division, in his blog.

"Today I'm excited to announce that we'll be providing this with the .Net 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 release later this year," he said.

The initiative begins with offering source code with source file components for the following technologies: